


In the quiet

by isa_belle



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Boris too but Theo doesn’t know that, Boys Kissing, First Kiss, How Do I Tag, M/M, Pining, Theo is in love, Theo is stupid and drunk, Underage Drinking, but like, per usual, this is the Goldfinch we’re talking about
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 01:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20716091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isa_belle/pseuds/isa_belle
Summary: “The first time something happened, that is to say, the first time Boris said fuck it and closed the already too small distance between our faces, was sometime before Thanksgiving, and looking back, I don't believe we were sober enough to fully register it.”





	In the quiet

**Author's Note:**

> My writing ability is dying slowly, I just suck recently, it’s fun. Anyways, I wrote this and I sort of hate the ending but maybe you’ll like it. Enjoy :)

The first time something happened, that is to say, the first time Boris (or me, I'm not really sure about that part, its blurry) said fuck it and closed the already too small distance between our faces, was sometime before Thanksgiving, and looking back, I don't believe we were sober enough to fully register it. 

We were sitting on the edge of the pool, our jeans pushed up past our knees. Our legs hung in the water, cool waves licking higher and higher up as we kicked our feet back and forth rather sluggishly in the murky water. We were drunk and sleepy and the sky was sprawled out above us, wisping smoke from Boris' cigarette swirling up and up until it faded into the black blue of the nighttime. 

Boris was muttering in my ear, something Polish I couldn't understand (it was always Polish when he was tired. I tried not to think too hard about why I knew that), it was rather late, not that we weren't used to staying up. Quite the opposite, in fact, Boris and I could lay side by side in my bed and talk anout nothing for hours and hours and hours on the right day, it just so happened that that was the wrong day, but there wasn't anything too bad about that, not at all. Sometimes the quiet was good. Sometimes I prefered it to the loud. The nights of boisterous laughs and play-fights we had when we were high were great, don't misunderstand, Boris somehow made my life a thousand times more bearable. Enjoyable even. Boris made the loud fun and exciting, everthying felt risky and I felt alive in flashes, seconds of feeling again, in the same way I did when I was a kid and I'd go to concerts with my mother and could feel the drum in my chest, pounding to a rythm that set chills loose on my arms and neck. But the silence carried a different tone, warmer. Just the dull scratch of Popchyk's paws on the tile as he wandered the house and Boris' druken whispers echoing through empty halls, keeping me sane, an anchor, a light from the shore. It was calm. It was good. I liked days like that. They were the only ones when I felt like I could breathe. Like I didn't need to have loud 'fun' to distract myself, like I wasn't trapped in Vegas, I was just there and that was fine because I had Popchyk and I had Boris and we had the quiet and that was okay, that was enough.

My train of thought was interupted by Boris saying my name, "Potter," he said, accent coloring his words. I ignored him and looked up to the sky. The moon glowed softly, letting the fainter light of the stars shine through. This is something I began to notice more in Vegas, after days of aching and longing for my mother and being with Boris. The moon felt different in New York, though I know it wasn't, not really. (I had asked Boris about that once, late evening, thinking about my mother as I often did in Vegas.

_"What does the moon look like in Indonesia?" I said, genuinely curious, genuinley interested._

_ "What are you on about?" He bumped his knuckles softly on the side of my head,  идиот . And he stretched and yawned, almost punching me in the face but then letting his arm fall loosely over my shoulder, fingers brushing my collarbone, light as a feather. "Same everywhere.") _

But it hadn't glittered in the same way it did there. In the city the moon was dulled by the lights of the building and houses and streetlights, snuffed out. But in Vegas the silver of the moon was shinier, glossier, sparkling differently than I'd seen before. Boris hit my arm to get my attention and my eyes snapped to him. 

"What?" 

Boris titled his head a little, stray curls falling into his eyes, lips upturning into a little smirk with a sliver of teeth. "What are you thinking about?"

I rolled my eyes and then glanced back at him, he looked like he was waiting for an answer, which he was, I guess, and I could see the reflection of the moon shimmering in his eyes. My eyes darted to my hands. It was a simple question, I figured. And a simple answer too.  _The moon_ , I almost said,  _you_ . But I didn't. That would have been... weird? I wasn't quite sure. It would have been too different, too not us. 

"Nothing," I said. It felt like a lie as it slid off my tongue.

Boris looked at me like he saw through my bullshit, which, I'm sure he did. Finding the truth in me, for him, was as easy as pulling back a curtain. 

"No," he said.

"What do you mean no?"

He brought his cigarette to his lips and I watched as he exhaled a puff of smoke. He glanced at me, looking me up and down and smirking little then said, "no," again and shrugged as if that were a satisfying answer. I let out a disbelieving laugh, frustrated and confused but somehow fond at the same time (my feelings for Boris tended to be like that. They always were strange, always messy. I could never quite give them a name or tack a label on them, even in my mind. We were just us and that's how it was) 

"I don't understand, Boris, what the fuck are you talking about?"

"Am not stupid, Potter, that is you." I shook my head in further confusion. He smiled and sighed, and tapped his fingers against my temple, "you are lying." He paused after every word, speaking slowly like he was talking to a kid, drilling his point home. His fingers were warm where they touched my face. "_лжец_."

I swatted his had away from my face, "So what if I am?"

Boris dropped his hand in his lap and took another drag off his cigarette, leaning his head left and right like he did when he was thinking. His chin tilted up and he looked at the sky, eyes big and glassy in the light of the moon. "Not good, Potter. We must tell eachother things. I am open book, but you?" He paused and turned to me, meeting my eyes, "you are... quiet, closed off. Like scared puppy." (I had to shake my mother’s voice from my mind as soon as the words left his lips.  _Let's go, puppy! _ She called in an echoey, distant kind of way.) I snatched the cigarette from Boris' hand. He raised his eyebrows like I was proving his point. I huffed and stuck it in my mouth. "See?" he said.

I took a drag and then paused before I spoke. What was I supposed to say? We didn’t talk, not crazy personal stuff, that’s just not something we did. He ought to have know that by then and I was bothered that he was asking. He got in my head. (Boris always did) "Whatever." I said and passed the cigarette back.

He took it and put it out on the concrete, then swept the ash into the pool. He wouldn't look at me, his eyes darting from the green-ish water of the pool to his hands. "Is not 'whatever' Potter, I-" He stopped mid-sentence, chewing on his lip, "I don't know. Nevermind, is not important." He stood up abruptly, splashing the water around. I sighed, feeling sort of sick with sudden guilt and nerves. Boris had never done this before. He always knew what to say, never hesitated to say it.

"Boris, wait." I said it without thinking, the alcohol making my tongue heavy and too lazy to fend off my thoughts from leaving my mouth. He turned to look to me. One of the legs on his pants had already fallen to his ankle, but the other was just drooping slowly down. "Don't-Don't be mad." 

The words were spoken but I couldn't define them, couldn't classify them. I couldn't for the life of me explain what I was trying to say. I'm not entirely sure I even knew what it meant. Of course I didn't want him to be angry, he was my friend. But I didn't know why I felt a fear, deep and sharp within me, tucked right up next to the memories of my mother, poking at my heart with a shard of ice. I suppose it's because I thought I would lose him too, somehow. That he'd go and get hit by a bus or some shit, and the last thing we'd have done together was argue. That it'd be my fault again and he'd be gone and I'd have to fix it all by myself. So I stood up and stumbled a little, drunk and dizzy.

Boris blinked, "am not mad, Potter."

"Then where are you going," I almost felt nauseous at the sound of my voice, whiny and babyish, a little desperate. 

He stepped back towards me, patting down the hair sticking out behind my ear then dropping a hand on my shoulder, as if he were holding me there, keeping me from floating off. His voice was warm. He said, "am not going anywhere, Theo."

I studied his face, eyes tracing his features for any signs of anger, finding none. I suddenly felt so relieved a weight I didn't even know was present lifted off my chest. I smiled a little, soft. It was quiet again. "okay." I said. I realized I was tired. Really tired, actually, and drunk too, not in the right state of mind, but I knew that bit already. That was why I was being irrational, that was why I was being paranoid. I took a breath, "okay."

Boris gazed at me for another second then took my hand, lacing our fingers together and tugging me towards our room. I let him pull me along and Popchyk followed us, padding down the hallway, right on my heels. When we reached the room, he let go of my hand and sat me in bed. 

"I was thinking about you," I said, pretty much against my will as he gently shut the door. I was definitley drunk.

"What?" He said, walking over and sitting next to me, our legs pressed up againts each other. I stared at the bare wall in front of me.

"You asked earlier. What I was thinking about, I mean."

I saw him blink in the corner of my vision, face twisted in apparent bewilderment. "Me?" 

"You." 

"Why?"

I sighed and turned to face him, leaning aginst his shoulder, "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

I shrugged a little, jostling his arm, "I don't."

"You okay Potter?" he asked, and I nodded, my chin bumping against his shoulder. We were very close, and I remember being able to feel his breath on my face, making my cheeks warm. And I remember wondering if that was okay, my face so close to his, the ruddy blush probably lighting up my features, if I was really fucked up or something, if I should ask him if it was okay. I remember being too far gone to care. The memories are hazy, like smeared ink, but I know the sounds, Popchyk's little grunts as he curled up against Boris' leg, the jingle of his collar and huff as he laid down. The ticking of the clock, the only thing on the wall. And the smells, Boris' breath like vodka, and Boris himself, like smoke and chlorine from the pool. And the feel of his arm against mine, the way his shoulder lifted with his chest as he breathed. The quiet and the warmth to it all. I think that's why I leaned forward, the hominess of it making my chest ache. The sudden knowledge that Boris could be home, that maybe I was home.

If I was sober I wouldn't have done it. (If Boris was, he would have pulled away.) I don't know who closed the distance. I think it was him but it's fuzzy, like everything else from my days in vegas. But the next thing I knew his mouth smashed against mine and we were kissing. (And I was kissing a boy but it didn't matter because that boy was Boris.) He grabbed my face and pushed me away with a gasp, "Theo are you su-" but I didn't let him finish, chasing his lips, pressing ours back together. I wasn't really sure how to do it, to kiss someone. I never really had before. But Boris did, thank god for that. He held my jaw in his hand, his fingers lightly grazing my face, thumb tracing my lip. Our noses bumped a little and it was messy, a blur of tongues and lips and teeth, and hands pawing blindy for something to hold onto.

Popchyk hopped off the bed, annoyed at us or something, I almost laughed. But then Boris pushed my glasses off and tossed them somewhere and I let my hands tangle in his hair and it was so unrealistically soft I sighed.

Boris laughed at me, "Big sap, you are Potter," he pecked my cheek, slow and delibrate, and ridiculously sweet. I felt my face heat up. Felt the rush of too much vodka in my chest (that’s all it was, we were drunk, we were kids).

"Sh-shut up" 

"Make me."

I kissed him again, hard. And he laughed and kissed me right back, kissed me until I forgot my own name and how to speak, until my knees were weak and our clothes were rumpled then gone and I had the realization that nothing mattered but that, right then, right there. That maybe when I woke up, everything would fall apart all over again and I'd remember to hate myself or I wouldn't rememeber at all but that that was tommorow and when his lips were on mine, tomorow didn't really feel like was going to happen.

We fell asleep in eachothers arms, tangled in sheets, legs overlapping. We needed to talk, I think. But I didn't want to. So we didn't. And we never really did. And that's sort of fucked up. But so were we. So _are_ we .

I think I loved him. And I think he knew that too. At least I hoped. Because I wouldn't say it. I couldn't, not then. I was a coward, naive and dumb not to take advantage of what I had, what was right in my face, loud and annoying with a smile like the light of the moon, I was scared. So we just did _stuff_ and pretended to forget. Over and over and over. That's just how it was. It was a new kind of quiet, a mix of the almost silence and the loud, and it wasn't warm, it was fiery hot, it would burn me (burn him too I suppose.) I craved it (and I hated myself for wanting it.) And I couldn't do anything about it, at least not in my mind. Looking back there was plenty I could have done. But I wouldn't, because that's not who I was. And all of it made me sick, it still does, the hiding, the lying, the pretending. It was a vicious cycle and it was all in my head, it was all for no reason. 

But that first time didn't carry all that heavy emotional wreckage, we were just two drunk, neglected, sleep-deprived boys, kissing like it was the end of the world, and that's all there was to it. No need for labels, just his lips on mine and the burst of color as it all happened, the way the warmth turned to raging fire. In Vegas I didn't have much. But I had the chaotic loud, and the warm quiet. And I had Popchyk and his stupid little paws. And I had Boris. Boris with his accent and his worldly knowledge, and his messy hair and scarred up face, his Russian swears and crazy laugh. His crooked smile, his chapped lips, his chewed up nails. The way his curls would fall in his eyes and he wouldn’t even move to brush them away. The clothes that hung too loosely around his thin frame. His bony wrists, clad with bracelets and his voice, soft and warm and present. His eyes, big like the moon and glossy, shining in the light, shining wherever he went.  I had _Boris_.  And that was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Every time I read a negative review for the goldfinch I spontaneously become Jared, 19.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it. Comment if you did, comments always make me smile and I crave constant validation. (also comment any prompts or things you want to read) Bye :)


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